


Barely Even Friends

by grumpybi



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Beauty and the Beast, Disney, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Let's Write Sherlock: Challenge 2, M/M, Romance, Slash, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpybi/pseuds/grumpybi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is a monster to deal with, but John is the only one who knows how to bring the human out of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is (in the process of being) written for the Let's Write Sherlock, Challenge 2: Choose a favorite fairy tale and rewrite it with characters from Sherlock. Rated M for language and (future) violence. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything, just borrowed a few characters from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the makers of BBC Sherlock. I mean no disrespect to either parties and I promise to put them right back where I found them.

A skull sat on the cocktail table, staring at the man lying on his back, stretched across the couch. He was resting impossibly still but for his mouth, which was moving at rapid speed as he spelled out his thought process for the skull's discernment.

“See, that wouldn't make sense. He doesn't keep pictures in his house besides photographed scenery or modern art and he auctioned off all of his heirlooms that didn't pose any practical use or match with his decor. Not exactly what you'd call nostalgic.”

Sherlock paused, glancing back at the skull sitting on the cocktail table. It stared right back at him, waiting patiently for him to continue.

“If not for nostalgic purposes, there would have been no rational explanation for him to take a trophy from the victim. He didn't need the money. His suit and sports car say more than enough about his abundance in wealth. But a ring was definitely missing from the body, and she was clearly wearing it, according to the wedding photos prior to the incident –”

“That. Is. _It_. I've had it with you!”

Sherlock looked up to see his flatmate stalking into the room, still dressed in the clothes she had worn when she had left a few hours earlier, but now sopping wet and soaking the carpet.

_Forgot her umbrella at Ryan's_ , Sherlock thought.

He hadn't noticed her coming in through the front door, and she was trailing water from the kitchen. _Climbed in through the kitchen window? Should probably check on how secure the latch is._ She was positively glowering at him, her hair and her expression wild with wrath. But her agitation was not uncommon, so he glanced back at the skull, intending to continue their conversation.

“You ought to come with a warning label, you _absolute_ wanker! I put up with your annoying violin screeching, you moping about in silence, I even tolerate you keeping body parts in the fridge!”

He wasn't sure yelling or complaining every single time she discovered one of his more unusual habits could be considered 'tolerating.'

“You put body parts in the fridge all the time, Susan.”

“I'm talking about _human_ body parts, Sherlock, not a bloody turkey leg!”

Sherlock failed to understand why that would be any different. Both were made from organic material. Both needed to be kept from decomposing as slowly as possible. If anything, his were technically safer since they weren't intended for consumption. But he refrained himself from making these points, Knowing his flatmate's current emotional state did not bode well for logical reasoning.

“Fine, I'll take the arm back to Barts first thing in the morning.”

“That's _not_ what I'm mad about right now!”

“Then enlighten me.”

She looked as if she was one more sardonic response away from strangling the man.

Gritting her teeth, partly because she was freezing and needed to stop them from chattering, but mostly out of anger, she let out, “I have been outside for nearly an hour. How can you not have heard me? I rang the buzzer about a million times, and I nearly ripped the sodding knocker off its hinge! I knew Mrs. Hudson was out, and I assumed you were home, but when no one opened the door I had to climb through the back and break in through the kitchen window. But here you are, just lying there, _talking to your fucking skull!_ ”

Sherlock sighed heavily. “I always disassemble the doorbell whenever I'm in my mind palace. I normally tune out noise outside of my consciousness anyways, but I always take precautions to remove any sort of potential distraction. At any rate, I assumed you'd be staying at Ryan's tonight.” Sherlock frowned. “Didn't you bring your keys with you?”

Her face fell suddenly. “I left them at... at his place.”

“Forget something then?” Sherlock said offhandedly.

He was slightly perturbed by Susan's abrupt mood change, but was relieved that she seemed to have calmed down. He rested his eyes and waited for her to leave. But a thud and a sob made him look up at her abruptly.

She had collapsed on the floor, her head buried in her lap, her shoulders shuddering turbulently. This made him far more uncomfortable than the instances where she would scream at him, complaining about one thing or another.

Sherlock didn't have the slightest clue what to do. Lestrade sometimes placed a reassuring hand on the shoulders of the especially disturbed witnesses or loved ones at crime scenes. Would that be appropriate in this sort of situation? She did exhibit similar characteristics: the excessive crying, the inability to speak or compose herself.

He stood up and approached her, crouching down slowly, and smoothed a hand along her back awkwardly, hoping it felt comforting.

He could feel her relaxing under his hand and her breathing slowed.

“Ryan was cheating on me.”

_Obviously_. He waited for her to continue, but she remained quiet, as if that were explanation enough for breakdown. Perhaps she was wondering if he was listening? By way of acknowledgment, he slowly responded, “Right...”

She looked up at him sharply. “You knew?”

Sherlock scoffed. “He keeps his phone locked around you,” he found himself saying. Spelling out his reasoning was second nature, and it didn't occur to him to stop and think if Susan really wanted to hear this. “He leaves the room whenever he has to take a call, watches how much he drinks around you, doesn't invite you to stay over very often but was always up for a road trip whenever you two went out, on the off chance you run into the other woman. Wasn't that difficult to figure out.”

Susan shoved him away roughly at that. “Why didn't you tell me?!”

“I assumed you just chose to ignore it. It seemed pretty straightforward.”

“Why on _earth_ would I choose to ignore the fact that he's cheating on me?!”

He shrugged. “He was well to do and was generous about it. Gifts and paid dinners alone were probably not incentive enough to stay. You still had to split a flat with me, so if you stayed with him long enough, maybe he'd ask for you to move in. He was also far more attractive than you by any standard rate of beauty, so being with him would improve your social credentials by association.”

Susan stared at him with cold, narrowed eyes. She slapped him hard across the face.

“Now there's _two_ men I want to leave,” she spat. “I'm moving out.”

He brought a hand to his face, rubbing his sore cheek, but the impromptu announcement shook him more.

“Moving out? Why?”

“Because you're a miserable, pathetic man, that's why! And because you just _assumed_ that I stayed with him, for what? For money? For status? Fuck you. I stayed with him because I loved him, and I left him because he clearly didn't love me the same way. Sod it – sod this.”

Susan brought her hands up to cover her face and inhaled slowly in an attempt to calm herself down. “Look, I'm so grateful for you taking me in, really. I know you and Victor hadn't spoken much since uni, and it was really so generous of you to allow me to move into the spare room – ”

“Well, I needed someone to split the rent with – ”

“But I can't deal with _you_!” Susan cut him off emphatically.

Her despondency was replaced with fury. She sighed and ran her fingers through her knotted hair. _Stressed, last night had only three hours –_

“Stop looking at me like that,” she yelped, almost manic. “You're constantly trying to study me, like I'm some human lab rat in this fucked up experiment you call life.

“You have no respect for me or my belongings. You throw away any of my things that pose an inconvenience to you, and use whatever else without my permission. The kitchen always smells of chemicals, but you won't even let me keep fresh roses in a vase because 'the smell throws you off.' And just now you wouldn't even bother to shut off for a second and remember there are other people to consider. Just because you were in your _mind palace_ , whatever that's supposed to mean.”

He huffed, exasperated. “It's a mnemonic device wherein you commit a location to memory and deposit recollections and data in order to be able to go back and find them easily. I've already explained this to you at length. Even for someone as simpleminded as you, how difficult must it be to understand?”

“That too! You think everyone's an idiot and you're above them all, sitting so high and mighty on your throne in your precious _palace_ ,” she spat, the last word laced with malice.

Sherlock rolled his eyes at the misused metaphor but kept himself from responding to it.

She breathed slowly and looked at him, trying to relax.

“You're brilliant, there's no doubt about that. But you know _fuck all_ about people. Sure, you understand anatomy or physiology, but you don't have a clue what's actually going on in our 'insignificant little brains.' All you care about is the data you observe, and that's all you'll ever know. Data. Cold, empty information.”

She disappeared into her room for a few moments, and he heard the indicative sounds of her dresser drawers opening and slamming closed, and of clothes being thrown into a bag. She walked back out with her packed handbag.

“I can't stay here anymore. I'll see if I can crash at a friend's place. I know it's only been three weeks, but I'll leave you my month's share when I come to pack up the rest of my things tomorrow morning. Please don't be here when I do.”

Sherlock didn't know what to say and wasn't sure there was anything left to be said.

Susan had her hand on the doorknob, ready to close it behind her, but stopped and turned. The previous sadness and anger were still present in her expression, but her eyes were full of sympathy and the sharpness of her voice was subdued.

“Sherlock?”

His head jerked up in response.

“Don't... don't stay like this. I may not have the patience to live with you, but I hope you find someone who does. But you're not going to find anyone unless you're open to accepting that person, and letting them accept you.”

Sherlock's face hardened. He resented being told he needed to form a sort of emotional attachment with anybody. Relationships of any sort were complicated, and it was far preferable to keep them to a minimum. He was more than comfortable with being alone.

She paused, leaned against the doorway and looked at him sadly. “That's the reason why it's not going to work out with me staying here. You don't want me here. I'm just a convenient source of rent money to you.

“I know you put your work first before everything and you think you've got everything figured out, but you haven't figured out anything worth knowing until you allow yourself to be open to it.”

“Open to _what_?” he snapped, getting thoroughly annoyed with her suddenly sympathetic demeanor. He didn't need her sympathy. Not hers or anybody else's. He was _perfectly_ _fine_.

“To love,” she flushed at the over-sentimental significance of her words. “Not necessarily like _that_. But to care about someone, enough to want to change some things in your life to make space for theirs. If you don't... at the very least, you won't be able to find a consistent flatmate. At the worst, your life will be a complete waste of existence.”

The door clicked shut and left Sherlock deafened by the silence.

~

“Harry?”

John jerked straight up. He regretted it immediately, pain blooming through his recovering shoulder. Falling asleep in a cushion-less hospital folding chair was probably not the best idea for a recuperating gunshot victim, but John wanted to be by his father's side the minute he woke up. The ex-soldier gently massaged his shoulder as he stood up and walked over to the bed, grasping the hands that were reaching out to him.

“Harry went home to get some rest. It's me, dad. It's John.”

His father's eyes screwed up, focusing on his face. John suddenly wondered how much he changed, and if he was still recognizable, even if it had only been eighteen months. But his father smiled warmly as tears ran across his face and soaked into the pillow underneath his head.

“John. You're back.”

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “This time for good.”

“Really?” His voice strained softly but his concern was detectable underneath it all. “Thought you were a captain now. Didn't think they'd let go of you that easily.”

“Well, no, it wasn't easy.” John shifted uncomfortably, unsure if he wanted to burden his sickly father with any of his more graphic experiences.

The older man gripped his hand tighter. “What happened?”

John sighed and with his foot, hooked the leg of the chair he was sitting in and dragged it closer, not wanting to let go of the hand so tightly grasped in his, clinging as if it was for the sake of John's life. He sank into his seat slowly.

“We were ambushed In Maiwand. Sustained an injury, bullet to the shoulder,” he closed his eyes as the memories flooded his mind.

Comrades lying still in pools of blood and filth. Hope draining from him during what he thought were his last moments until his orderly sought him out and carried him back to safety.

His pain must have shown on his face, because when he opened his eyes, he recognized a deeply troubled look staring back at him. From what John had learned from his father's doctor, the cardiac arrest had brought about so much pain already, and his sister's marital issues and reckless vice didn't help matters.

He forced himself to relax his face and simply concluded, “But I got out safely, and I've been officially discharged.”

As if he weren't himself lying in pain, recovering from his own severe health damage, John's father showed overwhelming concern for his only son. “How do you feel you now?”

John smiled sadly, feeling oddly guilty for his father's misplaced worry. “Aches every now and then, but I'm fine. Really dad, you don't have to worry with me. More importantly, how are you feeling?”

He didn't look like he exactly believed John, but resolved to not push the issue further. He let go of his grasp and returned to lay on his back with obvious fatigue.

“About the same. Except I'm getting bloody sick of staying in bed all the time. I guess that's one thing I won't miss when I'm out of here.”

“Wait, what do you mean when you're 'out of here'? You're still recovering, you need at least a few more weeks of supervised care.”

“Oh, I'll be fine. Anyways, it wouldn't be such an inconvenience for you to check up on me every now and then, would it?” he chortled genially.

John's face remained stern. “No, dad, you need more than a washed up army doctor looking after you. You need people familiar with your condition. Even after you've been given leave to go home, you're still going to need a visiting nurse. Anyway, I should be looking for work now that I'm staying. Don't want to become one of those homeless veterans, now do I?”

He attempted a smile, a vain effort at lightening the mood.

“You could always stay at my apartment, you know that.”

“I think I need something a little more permanent than a kip on your sofa.”

His father closed his eyes, looking suddenly helpless. “I have to go back to work.”

“What are you talking about? Of course not. Aren't you supposed to be retiring soon? Wouldn't hurt too much to set an earlier date, considering your condition. The business must be doing well enough, they can afford letting go of you a few months early.”

“John... it's gone under.”

John's heart sunk, and he fought to recompose himself. “What? What happened?”

His father shrugged in defeat. “All sorts of small businesses haven't been doing well ever since the plunge the economy took. We weren't immune.”

John didn't know what to think. All those people, good people he'd known and treated his family well, now out of a job. He felt a sudden spike of frustration when he realized that Harry had refrained from telling him sooner.

“How about Harry? Can't she help? ”

His father looked even more dejected at the mention of his daughter. “She's already having enough trouble with the divorce. And I think she needs to... she needs time to sort out her own life before she tries to support mine.”

Anger surged through John. The divorce alone was enough to make John bitter, without thinking of the repercussions it brought upon the Watson family. Clara was an amazing woman, and anybody could see that she loved Harry and would have supported her throughout everything. But Harry's alcoholic haze blurred her vision and she couldn't see what was clear to everyone else. Even after hearing her side of the story, John could still see she was in the wrong. Harry was under the impression that Clara was too controlling, but John knew better than that: Harry was just too stubborn to admit she had a problem, and if she wouldn't hear it from her wife or her father, she sure wasn't going to hear it from the brother she hasn't seen in over a year.

John gathered his thoughts to the point on hand.

“This changes nothing. You're staying in care until you're checked out, and we'll hire a nurse for house visits. I just need to get a job, that's all.”

The older man's eyes were brimmed with tears as he looked up at his weary but determined son. John willed him not to protest, because he didn't need his worn father trying to fight any more battles than necessary; his mind was made up. So all he did was reach for John's hand once again and whispered, “Thank you, son.”

~

John left his father when he fell back asleep, and went searching for a vending machine. He found the visitor's center empty of visitors; a small room cluttered with a few chairs, a lounge, and two vending machines tucked into the corner, one for drinks, the other chock full of snacks. He was trying to decide between two packs of biscuits when a nurse donned in maroon scrubs walked in and sank into the seat next to him, holding change in her hand.

“Oh, go on ahead,” John motioned to the machine. “I'm having difficulty deciding.”

“That's alright. I've already sat down and I have no intention of ever getting back up,” she said, smirking good-humouredly, as she tipped her head back and closed her eyes.

“Rough night?”

“You could say that,” she stared at the ceiling and relaxed her eyelids lazily. “But what night working in A&E isn't rough?”

“Ah. I know the feeling.”

She spied him analytically. “Nurse or doctor?”

“Doctor, but I haven't worked in an actual hospital in ages.”

“Why's that?”

“Er,” John hesitated, not exactly prepared to go into detail about his life to a total stranger. “My situation was more military based.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Looking for a bit of work now, though,” he slyly tried to steer away from his history. “Think there would be any openings here? Would be really convenient, to be close to my father.” Then remembering that she wasn't exactly aware of why he was here, he added, “He's a patient here, in CCU.”

She looked at him thoughtfully, but didn't push the subject. “Well, I don't know if you'll have much luck here. We're short on nurse staff, but the general practitioners here are a tight knit bunch. Tough to get in without having established connections. But there's a few hospices in London I'm sure that could use a doctor who's used to a little pressure. I've a friend who works at St. Mary's, I could give her a ring.”

“Really? I mean – ” John hesitated, unsure. Was it normal to take these types of favors from people he didn't even know?

But she simply nodded and said, “Don't worry about it. I'll call first thing in the morning.”

He felt so grateful, he had to refrain himself from hugging her aggressively, remembering that she was still a stranger, so he just said, “Thank you,” and stuck out his hand. “My name's John, by the way, John Watson.”

“Nadia Darley.” She shook his hand with the firmness that was unexpected of a clearly exhausted worker, but she smiled at him warmly and said, “Nice to meet you, John Watson.”

“You, too,” John grinned back at her.

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and studied him. “So when I find out about any positions... should I just guess your number then?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're not familiar, CCU stands for Critical Care Unit.  
> Even though I've got nurses for a sister and a mother, I'm not very familiar with American Health Care, much less UK Health Care, so if I portrayed anything abysmally, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, I hope it could just fall under Artistic License.
> 
> Non-beta'd, non-britpicked, so feel free to point out any errors!  
> Also, I'm new to the fanfiction business. If anyone is interested enough and would like to beta, please don't hesitate to let me know!
> 
>  
> 
> **Update**  
> This is the updated and beta'd version from the fantastic [wicked_little_thing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked_little_thing)!
> 
> I know it's been a while since I posted this chapter, but I promise the second chapter is following very soon!


	2. Attachment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After two weeks of solving cases together, John finally moves in with his partner, but Sherlock's finding it hard to get accustomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to [wicked_little_thing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked_little_thing) and [daleksanddetectives](http://archiveofourown.org/users/daleksanddetectives/pseuds/daleksanddetectives) for their very helpful beta-ing!

“That's alright, we don't need any help or anything.”

Sherlock sat at his computer and didn't even bother looking up at John's sarcasm.

“I know you don't. Between you and Nadia, I'm sure you can handle a few boxes.”

John shook his head resignedly, carefully setting down the box labeled 'Fragile' that he was holding in his arms. It had been two weeks since John agreed to move in with him, but he was finally getting around to moving his things from his father's storage to his new flat, now that he was about to start work in a few days.

Well, start work at St. Mary's.

In the two weeks they'd known each other, John and Sherlock had already worked on three cases together. Sherlock was gratified to find someone who was as great of a forensics assistant as well as a reliable partner who understood him and consistently had his back. The only thing he didn't care for was John's regrettably poor taste in women.

Not a minute later, Nadia followed behind John, struggling with an especially heavy box that clattered dully when she set it down. _How many books does he need? That's the fourth box that's been filled with them, at least 50 in each._

“You know, you could help us bring up some of his things.”

John smirked. “Don't bother, he's not going to be much help when he's like this.” He headed back downstairs to fetch more things from the cab.

Nadia frowned, annoyed.

“Sherlock, did you hear me?”

Sherlock groaned inwardly. He didn't want to talk to her. At least John understood that he needed to not be bothered right now. It wasn't fair that he was forced to put up with her just because she happened to be going out with his flatmate.

“Obviously.”

“Well? Can't you help us?”

“No.”

She huffed impatiently. “Well why not?”

“Because I'm busy.”

“Busy doing what?”

“Working.” he snapped, his annoyance escalated. “Surely you're not _that_ stupid, you work in the medical field for heaven's sake!”

She turned red at that. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He sighed heavily.

There was no love lost between him and Nadia. He didn't care for the fact that she was always getting in the way of everything, whether it were cases or seeking the undisturbed in the privacy of his own home. She didn't like the fact that he wasn't more receptive to her demands.

He resented being told to do things he didn't want to do. He resented it when his brother tried to guilt him into working for his country. He resented it when Lestrade tried to get him to follow protocol. He resented it when Mrs. Hudson berated him for keeping an untidy apartment.

But at least they had an excuse. These were people who cared about him, and they each proved to be quite useful, whether he needed a Get Out of Jail Free card, information on a new case, or a moderately priced place to live.

Yet this woman was unnecessary and most unwelcome. She posed no benefit to him nor connection besides her current romantic involvement with John, which wasn't going to last very long.

“Maybe it's that I don't appreciate being interrupted while carrying out my job. Maybe it's that you're asking me to help complete a task that could easily be carried out by you and John alone, not to mention that you would have been nearly finished by now if you hadn't stopped to bother me with your incessant questioning. Maybe it's because I don't come to the place where you work and beg you to do something for me even though we have no obligation to one another and the only reason I even bother tolerating you is because of John, who I do hold an obligation to, but he doesn't seem to mind that I need to focus on my work. Maybe it's all of these things. Maybe it's none of them. Maybe you can work it out for yourself.”

Even though he couldn't really focus on the words he read while talking, not once did Sherlock tear his eyes away from his laptop screen, but he could still feel the heat of her piercing glare. She said nothing, the air hanging thick with tension.

Heavy footsteps broke their silence as John walked up the steps and into the room, stacking another box among the others. _Clothes. Two boxes of clothes and four boxes of books out of the eight already brought up. The cab would only be able to hold ten at most, for the two of them to fit comfortably._ Sherlock suddenly pictured Nadia sitting on John's lap, crowded by boxes on both sides. He grimaced at the thought.

“There's just one more box downstairs, and then we'll head out, okay?” John stopped and noticed the uncomfortable situation he'd walked in on. He glanced at Sherlock and then to Nadia.

“What's wrong?”

She didn't reply, but instead left and rushed back downstairs.

John turned sharply to Sherlock. “What did you say to her?”

“Just that I was too busy to help.”

“What _exactly_ did you say to her?”

“I might have went on for a bit.”

“Sherlock...” John breathed exasperatedly, and he raced back downstairs. For a few minutes, Sherlock heard nothing but muffled antagonized speech. He gave up trying to concentrate on the article he was skimming, instead stretched his neck to look out the window beside him. Nadia had a furious expression on her face, pointing up at 221B as she spoke. She boarded the cab and drove off, leaving John standing at the curb with his last box in hand.

It was over too quickly to be a permanent break up. Sherlock frowned and returned to his laptop. If only he were so lucky.

Soft thuds echoed in the stairwell as John walked back up. He didn't look at Sherlock when he entered the room, but just set the last box down and went to sit down on the sofa, burying his face in his hands. He lifted his head and opened his mouth slightly, as if about to say something, but decided to leave it and began opening up boxes.

“You're upset with me.”

“Figured that out, have you?” John said bitterly.

Sherlock turned to face him. “Out with it then.”

John looked at him sternly, but simply turned back to continue unpacking his things.

“I only told her the truth. If she took it offensively, that's her prerogative.”

“ _No_ , Sherlock,” John said emphatically. “She didn't 'take it offensively,' you _said it_ offensively. It wouldn't hurt for you to be a bit nicer to her. You've been nothing but rude since you two met.”

Even though John was angry with him right now, Sherlock reflected that this was one of the things that he admired about him. John was the only person he didn't resent telling him what to do, mainly because John wasn't a demanding sort of man. He merely suggested, or sarcastically implied, but only really told him to do on rare occasions, which made Sherlock all the more willing to comply.

Sherlock said nothing, but resolved to try to keep his tongue in check next time. He couldn't promise not to be unpleasant to her, but he could at least try to say as little as possible, to minimize the damage. He turned back to his computer screen and opened a new article.

John took his silence as an agreement, and returned to his boxes. The first thing he brought out was a stack of books, ranging from thick leather-bound novels to worn-out paperbacks. Sherlock noticed him smile slightly, grazing his fingers through the pages.

John glanced at the two full-length set of shelves to his right, already stuffed full of volumes, mostly reference books, with a few frames and figurines littered sporadically throughout.

“Any chance I could move some of your things? Maybe hang some of these pictures instead? Put some of the books in your room?”

Sherlock barely heard him, now actively tuning out all distractions. It wasn't until he noticed out of the corner of his eye that John was collecting some of the things from off the shelves and setting some of his books down in their place.

“Stop that.”

When John ignored him, Sherlock stood up indignantly and crossed over to the shelves. “I have my things organized in a certain way, and I'll ask you not to mess them up,” he snapped, snatching his things out of John's hands and putting them back where they belonged.

“You're acting like a child, Sherlock!”

“I like my things kept in a certain way in _my_ home.”

“Well, it's not just your home any more, is it? You have to give up some things if I'm going to be living here.”

Sherlock stiffened. It had been a month since Susan left, but he still found himself reflecting on her parting words. Now more than ever, with a new flatmate moving in that he actually approved of and respected. John's “if” resounded in his head, paired with Susan's words about having to change his life to make space for others.

“You're not backing out, are you?” Sherlock asked with trepidation.

John looked taken aback. “N-no, I just moved in. How would it be to just move back out? Although it wouldn't be difficult, since I'm still packed, but no, of course not. Anyway, it's not that big of a deal. I mean, it is a big deal, but nothing to move out over.

“But I'm being serious, Sherlock. If you actually _want_ me here, you'll need to be a bit more flexible with some things.”

“I do want you here.”

“Well, you need to show me that. I get that you like things a certain way, and that's fine. But I'm not your lodger, I'm your flatmate, and this is not your area, this is our shared area. You have to let go of something. And if you're so determined to keep the shelves, fine, then pick anything else. All I ask is for a bit of leeway.”

Sherlock hesitated. Susan's words resounded annoyingly in his head again and he pushed the thoughts away and changed the subject.

“Why do you have so many books anyway? They make up nearly half of your belongings.”

John stepped away and over to the box he had previously opened, lifting out another stack of books. He shrugged.

“I like reading,” he said simply. “And a lot of the clothes I left with my father got moth-eaten. He didn't remember to keep mothballs in the closet, but at least remembered to keep these in a cool, dry place. Which is better anyways. Those clothes probably wouldn't fit me well any more, or they would at least have gone out of style.

“But books don't age,” John said with a light crinkle in his eyes.

John watched Sherlock pick one of the novels from the stack he was holding in his arms. Hardcover fairytale. On the inside cover, scribbled in juvenile handwriting, was the name “John W.”

“So can you make space for my things, then?”

One of John's rare requests. It obviously meant a lot to him. Sherlock became irritated as his mind warred with itself. On one hand, John sounded entirely reasonable, but if Sherlock appeased him now, where would it stop? He breathed a sigh of relief when his phone rang, glad to have an excuse to delay his response.

The name “DI Lestrade” shone, illuminated on his phone screen.

“Yes, what is it?”

“We've found a heart.”

“A heart?”

“Yes, just an organ, sitting in a jar of formalin. DNA tests came back to reveal that it belongs to an Olivia Perry, whose body was found last year. Unsolved case. There's also a couple more related cases from a few years back that share similarities. They seem to be linked. Can you come in and take a look?”

“Fine.”

He hung up promptly, placed the books he was holding on top of the cocktail table, and walked over to the coat hooks to don his Belstaff.

“New case. Coming?”

John paused and looked at him, as if he were still waiting for an answer. But he put down the books he had in his hand and went to grab his own coat.

“Yeah, fine, let's go.”

~

Sitting on a counter top of Scotland Yard's laboratory was a jar full of transparent liquid, and John recognized what was floating within.

“It's a heart.”

“Very astute, John. Glad to know you can distinguish it. There's hope for St. Mary's after all.”

The entire cab ride over had been spent in silence, and Sherlock hadn't bothered to fill him in on what the case was about. Sherlock's retorts were harsher than he usually was with John, revealing his underlying bitter attitude toward him at the moment. John ignored him.

“Is it human?”

Lestrade looked up warily. “Having a row?”

John shrugged. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I told him about it already and I assumed he would've told you, unless there's some reason he didn't want to speak to you?”

John looked up at Sherlock, who ignored them as he picked up the jar and lifted it to the light, turning it slowly to get a full 360 degree view.

“It's nothing,” John muttered. “So who does it belong to?”

“Ms. Olivia Perry. Her body was found last year. We've found similar cases with women whose bodies have turned up with an empty heart cavity, only to have the organs turn up months later.”

The inspector prodded the two files that were sitting open on the counter. “The first woman was Tamera Rynes. Her body was found five years ago, and it took two years for her heart to turn up. Only three months afterward, the second victim's body was uncovered. Nicole Turner. Eight months later, her heart was returned. Then a year later, Perry's body showed up. Exceptionally uneven timelines.

“Besides the fact that they're women, they don't have any other distinguishing similarities. Different heights, different body shapes, different ethnic backgrounds. They were found in different areas in London. Different professions, blood types, hobbies, you name it. The age range is a bit wide, too. Respectively, they were 30, 26, and 39.”

“You keep saying the hearts just 'turned up,'” John said, puzzled. “What do you mean 'turned up'?”

“That's another odd thing. They just show up, in highly populated areas. The first showed up in the Underground, the second in Hyde Park, the last in Chinatown. We've been through all the surveillance footage we could get our hands on, but the areas were always incredibly busy whenever they were dropped off, so we couldn't pinpoint the exact moment, and we couldn't distinguish any similar faces. The jars themselves are too common to be traceable, and the only prints we were able to get belonged to the people who discovered them.”

“When did you find this jar?”

“A couple of weeks ago. We've been going through everything, but with no leads, it seemed like another dead end. I know it's not much to go on, but I hoped Sherlock could find something from all of this.”

They turned to the detective, who still hadn't said anything since they arrived. He had carefully placed the jar back down and was flipping through the photos of the three victims and the other two hearts.

Lestrade continued, “They were all injected with etorphine, tranquilizer often used on large mammals. Subtle bruising patterns on their wrists and ankles indicate that they were strapped down. While they were under, they were cut open and their hearts surgically removed. These women have no associations with each other, but the style of the murders are so similar, and they appear to be carried out by the same person, so it seems to have been linked serial killings.”

“Wrong,” Sherlock spoke up.

“Sorry?” Lestrade said.

“This isn't the work of a serial killer.”

“Why do you say that?”

Sherlock ignored the query. “What were their sexual orientations?”

Lestrade looked confused for a moment, but collected himself. “Er, I believe they were all straight. They each had partners at the time, who were all men. We spoke to them, to check their alibis during the time of the victims' disappearance, and each of them were cleared.”

Weariness flooded his face. “It was bloody awful. Ms. Perry had just gotten engaged, too.”

Sherlock frowned. John thought it might have been a rare expression of remorse, but he recognized it instead as a rare expression of puzzlement.

“Well first, it's clear that the murderer has some experience with anatomy, but they're not exactly an expert. The last cardiectomy was clean, but the first was crudely done. You could see from the photos, the heart itself remained intact, but the flesh from its cavity was torn. Whoever the killer is, they're learning from their mistakes.

“Second, the hearts are obviously some sort of trophy. A memento from their achievement. The fact that they chose to kill by removing the heart, and then actually kept the organ for some amount of time, seems to symbolize some sort of romantic attachment to the victim. Serial killers don't get attached to their victims, they don't share empathy for them. This was committed out of passion. If the killer were to have romantic attachments to each victim, and they were all straight women, we're looking for a male suspect. Simple.”

“But if these hearts are supposed to be a sort of sentimental keepsake, why would the killer just abandon them?” Lestrade questioned.

“He's abandoning the hearts whenever he gets into a relationship with another woman, or when he comes to love another woman. It's a symbol of getting over his previous infatuation. Letting go, so to speak.”

“But the men the victims were with at their time of death were all different. They don't even have any associations with each other.”

“It doesn't have to be their current partners. The killer could be loving them from afar. The killer could be a former lover who became jealous to see them become serious with another man. I suggest you look into their entire romantic and sexual history and see if you could find any connections.”

Lestrade sighed. “Okay, thanks for coming down. I'll let you know if we find anything.”

Without another word, Sherlock swept out of the room. John realized a bit too late and had to pick up his pace to catch up with Sherlock's long strides. He waited until they were outside before he tried talking to him again.

“Fancy some dinner, then?” John looked up at him expectantly.

Sherlock's face remained impassive, but the subtle clench of his jaw was unmistakable.

“No, I need to go to St. Barts. Go ahead though, I'll see you at the flat later.”

John stopped and gripped Sherlock by the arm.

“Alright, what's going on? Are you angry about what I said earlier?”

Sherlock didn't look at him, didn't even turn to face him. He snatched his arm out of John's grip, but he seemed to realize too late how harsh that looked.

In a forced relaxed voice, he said, “No, I'm fine. I just need to check up on a corpse I've tested on yesterday, and I'd rather not go there tomorrow morning during Johnson's shift. Molly gives me a bit more privilege.”

John's eyes narrowed. “For someone who complains so often about my acting abilities, you're a terrible liar. I don't understand why you're so mad about me wanting a bit of privilege of my own, in my own home? Do you really not appreciate me at all?”

“No, I – ”

“You know what, forget it,” John said bitterly. “Go ahead to the flat, you don't have to make up any more excuses. I'll stay at Nadia's tonight.”

John walked furiously away from him and didn't dare look back as he turned at the first corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have practically no knowledge about how cardiectomies are actually done, but I didn't research all about them only because the procedure doesn't really add to the plot, so if I'm totally off about it, please take it as it is.


	3. Small Gestures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's relationship with Nadia and his friendship with Sherlock are evolving, but in directions he hadn't expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much love to [wicked_little_thing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked_little_thing/profile) for taking the time to beta and offer her wonderfully helpful advice.

Nadia had sounded like she was in a much better mood when John rang her, and he took that as a sign that she had gotten over their argument earlier that day. She eagerly invited him over, telling him that her flatmate was working the night shift, and they would have the place to themselves.

She buzzed him up, and once he reached her front door and knocked, it flew open and she grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and yanked him in, crushing her lips to his. Bewildered, John wondered how on earth her mood changed so radically from earlier this afternoon, but he responded with matched eagerness. She shut the door behind him and urged him toward the sofa, not letting go of his lips for a second. When they finally stopped to take a breath, she straddled him, and John smiled and pressed his forehead against hers.

“What has gotten into you?”

She gave him an alluring smirk.

“I don't know. I just know that I'm happy, and I'm happy you're here, and I wanted to show you just _exactly_ ,” urging her hips down for emphasis, “how happy I am.”

John felt a strange pang in his chest and remembered what he told Sherlock, about wanting him to show his appreciation for John. Then he pushed the thought aside, wondering how on earth he could be thinking of his flatmate _now_ , when a beautiful woman was pressing herself against him like this.

“So, you're not angry.”

Nadia's eyes softened. “No. I was never angry at you anyway. It was your prick of a flatmate.”

John felt a twinge of guilt at the insult directed to his friend, but didn't respond to it.

“But after I left, I got really frustrated with myself for taking it out on you, so this is my way of saying 'Thank you for dealing with me.'” She grinned wickedly and lifted his jumper off, leaving a trail of kisses from his lips, to his neck, to his chest, moving lower and lower.

~

With heavy breaths and sweat-slicked skin, they pulled apart. Nadia lifted herself off of John's lap and fell back with an “oomph,” lying opposite of him, with her head leaning against his feet and her feet stretched near his head. With a lazy grip, he took hold of her foot and started tickling it playfully. Her leg jerked involuntarily.

“No, stop!” she giggled. “I'm gonna kick you, seriously!”

John snickered and instead pressed his thumbs into her foot, massaging it gently.

“Oh, that feels good.”

“More than the other thing we just did?” he joked.

“Definitely.” An awkward silence fell before she laughed. “I'm kidding, relax.”

She sat back up to reposition herself to lay down face to face.

“Hey,” she said, looking at him longingly. “I think I love you.”

John stiffened. They've only been going out for a few weeks, and he wasn't one to take that word lightly.

“You don't have to say it back. I just wanted to let you know that.”

He captured her lips gently in response and relaxed slightly, but only too soon.

“Do you want to have kids?” she mumbled as she nuzzled into his neck.

His heart beat nervously. _Calm down, it's just a question_.

“Er... I don't know. Maybe.”

“Hmm,” she responded. “I want to have kids.”

John wasn't sure what to say to that.

“Three strapping young lads,” she continued, hitching her voice up to a playful lilt. “You can take care of them while I'm off to work, and every day, I'd come home from work and you could massage my feet.”

She scrunched up her face adoringly and kissed him lightly on his nose.

John looked at her, unsure of whether she was kidding or not.

He laughed hesitatingly. “So I'm a stay-at-home dad in your fantasy?”

“Mm-hmm,” she nodded, biting her lip as if stifling a laugh, but her eyes were full of sincerity.

He chuckled halfheartedly. Even though he knew, or hoped at least, that she was just joking, he wondered how he would fit into this picturesque family.

He had just started working with Sherlock, and he loved it. And as infuriating as the smug detective was, John found that his attachment to Sherlock was far stronger than his relationship with Nadia, even though he knew them both for about the same amount of time.

It was to be expected; Sherlock and him faced danger and fought their way out of life-threatening situations on a regular basis. He understood that sort of bond, having gone through it frequently as a soldier. Having to trust your comrades to have your back, and making sure you had theirs – that kind of mutual reliance caused strong bonds to form at a quicker rate than they do in normal civilian life.

If he was to be entirely honest with himself, he was more comfortable with the notion of chasing down criminals until his old bones got the better of him than moving to the country and raising three boys. He felt a little ill at the images that were currently flooding his imagination.

Nadia's voice broke through his thoughts, “Are you hungry? Have you eaten dinner yet? I could fix something up for you.”

Oddly enough, he felt like he lost his appetite.

“No, that's alright,” John replied, thankful for the change in topic. “I'm knackered.”

H held her closer as he drifted off to sleep.

~

John woke up early the next morning. He lightly shook Nadia to let her know he was leaving, turning down her suggestion of breakfast with a poor excuse of having to go back to his place to finish unpacking. She was half-conscious though, so she didn't question him, and he let her fall back asleep.

During the entire cab ride over, all John could think of was what he would say to Sherlock when he finally reached their flat. Part of him hoped they could just ignore their row and pretend it didn't happen, like the two true Englishmen they were.

Yet deep down he didn't want to ignore it, because he wanted, no, he _needed_ Sherlock to understand that their partnership was not gonna work if Sherlock was going to keep acting like he was alone and preferred it that way.

He unlocked and opened the door to 221B, finding the sitting area empty. After a brief search, he found Sherlock sitting in the kitchen, waiting patiently. His face looked tired and it lacked a healthy amount of color, but his eyes brightened, flicking to John as he walked in.

The dining table still held all of Sherlock's chemistry equipment, but they were cleaned and organized to the side to allow space for actual dining, and upon it sat plates overladen with eggs, bacon, sausages, toast, waffles and fruit.

“Have an appetite for once, do you?”

Sherlock looked at him disparagingly. “Don't be thick. I ate two days ago, and you know full well digestion slows me down while I'm on a case. I just thought you'd want something to eat since you haven't had anything since lunch yesterday.”

“How could you possibly have known that?”

“You tend to not eat very much without me.”

John gathered his brow in confusion. He hadn't thought about it, but suddenly realized he couldn't think of a single full meal he'd consumed in the past few weeks without his new friend.

“Huh. I hadn't noticed that. Wonder why that is.”

Sherlock hesitated. “I hope it doesn't ruin your appetite now that I've pointed it out.”

“Uh, no. I'm just surprised, is all. But I'm sure not hungry enough to finish all of this,” pointing to the excess amount of breakfast food. “You'll have to eat some.”

“Well, you don't have to finish it now.”

“You're still eating some.”

Sherlock scowled at him, but walked over and grabbed a fork from a drawer. He sat back down and stabbed a strawberry with unnecessary fervor. He stretched a sarcastic grin across his face before sinking his teeth into the fruit.

John bit back his smile and sat down across the table to where a place setting was made for him. While he began to load his plate with a little of everything, Sherlock seemed to become increasingly uncomfortable, as if he was fighting to get something off his chest.

“I do appreciate you,” he said abruptly.

Sherlock was never one for small gestures. Gestures of any kind, really. So the fact that Sherlock Holmes, the supposedly sociopathic genius, had noticed John's needs and put in effort to fulfill them made John feel extremely appreciated indeed.

John looked up at him. “I know. Thank you.”

_I appreciate you, too. And I'm sorry I doubted you._

He wanted to ask what Sherlock was determined to do about the matter of the shelves but decided against it, not wanting to ruin the sincere moment between them.

Sherlock set down his bitten strawberry and looked down at his hands. “What do you think of me, John?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you think of me?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean exactly what I asked. How else are you supposed to understand the question?”

John stared at him strangely, but Sherlock looked back at him with something akin to childlike curiosity.

“I think... you're nice?”

“Oh, be serious. 'Nice' is probably one of the last words on anyone's mind when describing me.”

John laughed. “Okay. Well I think you're brilliant.”

“I wasn't fishing for compliments, but thank you.”

“I know a lot of people think you're a dick.”

Sherlock's expression remained neutral. “Do you think that?”

“I think because people think you're a dick, you tend to act like one.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Elaborate.”

“Like with Nadia,” John said, detecting a slight clench in Sherlock's jaw. “I know she treats you a bit like a child, but then you don't bother even trying to prove her wrong. You just end up behaving like a child.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, but in a more pensive sense, rather than offended. “I don't care what she thinks.”

“You obviously do, in some sense. If you really didn't care, you'd leave her alone. For some reason you _want_ to show her that you're better than her.”

“I _am_ –”

“Don't you say it. I know you're better than her, in certain things. You're better than most people. But you don't always feel the need to prove it to everyone. Only to the ones you want to make sure _know_ that you are.”

He took a pause. “But I think you mean well, for the most part. At least, deep down.”

Sherlock's lip twitched up.

“But like, really deep. Mariana Trench-deep,” John grinned.

Sherlock's face switched onto detective mode, his eyes flicking back and forth at nothing, scanning imaginary files in the air.

“What's the Mariana Trench?”

“Really? The Mariana Trench? Deepest point in the world? Oh, never mind.”

John shook his head, chuckling to himself. He picked his fork back up and chewed contently. “Why do you ask?”

Sherlock gave a half-shrug. “I wanted to know what an objective observation of myself would be, and you seem to be an objective observer.”

“Why do you say that?”

Sherlock deliberated for a bit. “You remember when I met you for the first time? And I figured out everything about you; your army background, your psychosomatic limp, your alcoholic sister.”

“I recall that you thought it was my brother at the time.”

“Yes, but that's besides the point. After I finished explaining how I figured it all out, you said that it was amazing, and I told you that people normally responded a lot worse than that. Well, what I actually meant was that people _only_ responded a lot worse than that.”

John stopped mid chew and his mouth gaped slightly. He swallowed thickly. “Oh.”

They continued to eat in comfortable silence. Well, more like John continued to eat, and Sherlock played with his fork, flipping it between his fingers.

“Nadia said something strange to me last night.”

Sherlock's teeth gritted again, “What was it?”

“We had just had sex,” John divulged, noticing Sherlock averting his gaze. “And then she told me she was in love with me. And wanted to have children. And pretty much implied she wants to have them with me.”

Repeating it all at once made John feel all the more troubled by it. Even more troubling was the nauseated expression on Sherlock's face.

“You two have only been together for three weeks.”

“We've only started dating two weeks ago. And we only started having sex three days past. I'm not crazy, right? She's acting a bit...”

“Mental?”

A loud snort escaped John. “No, well, I mean, she did seem like she was joking, at least half-joking. She was definitely genuine about being in love, though.”

“Is that strange?”

“Well, yeah. Doesn't it seem pretty soon?”

It suddenly struck John how limited Sherlock's experience with romantic relationships might be.

“Why, when do people normally say it?” Sherlock tilted his head slightly, curiously.

“I've only ever said it during serious relationships, probably like a month or two in, at the very least. Nadia and I haven't even talked about becoming exclusive.”

“Do you want to be?”

“I'm not sure,” he contemplated. “I mean, I don't want to sleep around or anything. I like her a lot. She's fit, she's clever, she's an incredibly fun person to be around. I almost don't know what she sees in me, to be honest, but I feel like I barely know her enough to call her my _girlfriend_.”

“Huh,” Sherlock trailed off.

“What?”

“I would have expected you to be more... indulgent. Reckless, even.”

“Why, because I invaded Afghanistan?”

“Yes that, too, but you do seem to have a penchant for brazen behavior.”

“Hmm,” John regarded thoughtfully. “But there's a difference between the battlefield and playing the field.”

“Which is?”

“The second is way more fucking frightening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the idea of John's possible eating disorder from [this post.](http://tiger-in-the-flightdeck.tumblr.com/post/47567082889/gini-baggins-what-john-has-a-depression) Very interesting deduction by the Sherlock Fandom.
> 
> Even if to say you hate it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Comments of any kind make me excite!


	4. Then Somebody Bends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock finds himself stuck, and for once, his mind palace doesn't hold all the answers.

After the table had been cleared, Sherlock began complaining loudly that the boxes in the sitting room were causing a fire hazard and needed to be dealt with. While this was true, he was hoping it would work to gloss over their tiff from last night and get John to bring his books up to his room – but John only brought up the boxes that held his clothes and personal items. His collection of novels were left sitting in the corner, a reminder of the unfinished business between them.

Their talk over breakfast had helped relieve some of the stress building upon Sherlock's shoulders, but the issue was far from resolved. It had nagged at him the majority of the previous night, distracting him from focusing on his work.

He hadn't been lying about his plan to visit Barts' morgue, but after John walked away from him in anger, Sherlock lost his inclination to share the company of anybody else. Instead, he headed straight home. After giving up on attempting to concentrate on the case at hand, he tried returning to former methods. He spent a good hour trying to argue with his skull in order to organize his thoughts. Yet after the last couple of weeks with John to talk to, the skull had become dreadfully dull and unresponsive, so the battle raged quietly in his head.

_Why should I give up my shelves?_

Why shouldn't you?

_Because I've become accustomed to them. I prefer them that way._

It wouldn't be the worst thing to give up a little bit of space.

_But where does it end?_

With the shelves.

_As if John would be appeased with anything as trivial as that._

He would. He's a very reasonable man. He just wants to see that you appreciate him.

 _But I_ do.

He doesn't know that.

_I could just tell him._

Or you could just show him. He deserves more than just a few words, after all.

After a whole night of repeating the same reasoning over and over again, he was getting weary of his own defense. Perhaps it was rather ambitious of him to think he could win a battle of wits against himself. Frustrated, he sought a distraction. He resolved to prepare breakfast for John, a small token of consideration that might help buffer the tension between them.

It was 3am and with the shops still closed and nothing in the fridge – save for condiments, leftover takeaway, and a severed leg – Sherlock stole into 221A. Mrs. Hudson had always made it clear that her kitchen was open to him if he needed it, ever-knowing about the wrecked state of his own and its lack of anything substantial. Sherlock assumed that the offer still held no matter what time of day, but he left a quickly scrawled message anyway which read, _Needed breakfast. – SH_ , stuck a 20 pound note underneath, and grabbed everything he needed from her pantry.

He didn't stop to question himself why he was doing this. Somehow, it was already engraved in his daily routine to make sure John had something to eat.

John's eating disorder had been apparent when they'd first met: _Coffee stains on his collar, loose tea stuck in his teeth but little else from the past 24 hours. Face haggard from lack of sleep and limited nutrients consumption in past week, but exhibiting no signs of hunger._

Sherlock registered John's lapsed appetite as a common symptom of PTSD, the depression depriving John of the will to survive.

Except when they stayed at Angelo's restaurant to stake out 22 Northumberland Street during their first case together, John ate ravenously, as if just discovering his dormant hunger. At first, Sherlock assumed it was the adrenaline that kept him eating, like it had helped with his psychosomatic limp and the intermittent tremor in his hand. While the limp and tremor never returned, John still had long periods of time when he lost the desire to eat. It didn't take too long for Sherlock to figure out that _he_ was the common denominator. Sherlock kept John hungry.

Since then, Sherlock found himself taking more opportunities to stop what they were doing and make sure John had a full meal in him. It was a bit hypocritical, since Sherlock himself never cared to follow a balanced diet, eating only when necessary since digestion always slowed him down, but at least his was a conscious decision. John's will to eat was directly linked to his will to live, and for some reason, his will was strongest with Sherlock.

Sherlock recalled what John had said just earlier, when this had been pointed out to him.

“I hadn't noticed that. Wonder why that is.”

 _He hadn't even realized it_ , Sherlock thought bitterly.

_Why do I have to give up my things to show my appreciation for him if he doesn't appreciate the things I do for him? I don't owe him anything._

You owe him your life.

_Well he owes me his. We should be even._

But that wasn't true.

Before John, Sherlock always assumed isolation was preferable to sharing the company of any idiot out there. Even the more bearable ones became positively insufferable after too long... but John was different. He was still an idiot, but he was also patient. He seemed to understand Sherlock more than the detective understood himself. Not to mention the helpful addition of his medical skills and his willing cooperation to aid the detective in everything.

It came as a shock to Sherlock when he realized that, more than John's assistance, he treasured his company. Especially more than that of his skull.

John didn't owe him anything. Ultimately, Sherlock needed John more than John needed him.

It was disconcerting how much Sherlock had come to rely on his newfound friend. He'd only just moved in and Sherlock was already worried about him leaving. He even started to get upset at the thought of John moving away and starting a family, recalling Nadia's attempt at a joke.

That was another problem. Nadia. Every single time he thought about her, anger boiled in the pit of his stomach. Why did he care so much about her?

It wasn't just her sense of self-importance, her overbearing attitude, or her knack for interrupting his work. Those were all causes to dislike her, but they weren't enough to explain Sherlock's intense hostility towards her. He traced his thoughts back to when he first met her.

She and John had been holding hands, both of them waiting in front of Barts where Sherlock had messaged to meet him. From that point on, every text he sent John that began with “Meet me at” always ended with an emphasized, “alone.” John always complied and never argued against it.

The next time he saw her was a week later, as he walked out of his room to find the couple asleep on the lounge, John's arms wrapped relaxingly around her waist. Sherlock had retreated back to his room, picked up his violin and drew out long discordant tunes unashamedly, hearing groans of annoyance from the other side of the door.

The worst was when John would come home from one of their dates, drunk and smiling stupidly. She can't have made him happy. Not enough, or else he'd actually have an appetite for more than alcohol when he was with her. Sherlock took comfort in this, concluding that he meant more to John than Nadia did.

Then it clicked.

Jealousy? Was that it? Out of all sickening emotions, Sherlock never would have thought he'd find himself succumbed to this. Why on earth would he be jealous of her relationship with John?

As soon as the question crossed his mind, the answer became clear. He imagined it was his own hand John was gripping, waiting outside Barts. Lying on the sofa with John's arms snaked possessively around him. The two of them inebriated, falling over each other as they stumbled into 221B... and like he'd flipped a switch, the anger in his stomach became a fire in his gut and an ache in his chest.

“Shit.”

Sherlock pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes, embarrassed and confused and extremely light-headed at his realization.

Except – how was he supposed to know this is what it _was_? He never felt this level of attachment before. The only person he'd ever felt emotionally close to was Victor Trevor, all those years ago at Cambridge. But that was only the result of two outcasts who shared mutual respect for each other. That former friendship had simply been a necessary crutch to get through university and after graduation it had fallen apart easily and painlessly.

This was far from painless. His heart beat rapidly, feeling as if a sentient being was pulling it from its cage. The cases of the cardiectomies prodded at the back of his mind, and he became achingly aware of what it was like to feel as if your heart was tearing out of your chest, even if it was purely psychological. It was all the worse, now that he had become conscious of what he felt for John.

What did he feel for John anyway? Was it simply friendship laced with restrained lust? A passing fancy that was only made more intense with the desire of wanting something he couldn't have? Could it possibly be ... love?

He searched through his mind palace to a room rarely visited, filled with information deemed less important and rarely relevant to his work.

Love (v.), deriving from the Old English _lufian_ , meaning “to love, cherish, show love to; delight in, approve.

Love (n.), from the Old English _lufu_ , meaning “love, affection, friendliness,” derived from the Germanic words _leubh –_ “to care, desire, love.”

Love, meaning no score made in tennis, derived from the notion “playing for love;” “for nothing.”

 _Love seat_ invented in 1904, sofa designed for seating two persons.

 _Lovebird_ , one of the nine species of the genus _Agapornis_ , a social and affectionate small parrot.

_Hello, love._

_Love you._

_I love you._

_I'm in love with you._

_Make love to you._

_Fallen in love with you._

_Loveless. Lovelorn. Lovestruck. Lovesick._

Sherlock shook his head in frustration. It was a completely abstract emotion, unlike any other. It had an array of meanings and attachments. He desperately wanted to conduct research online, but if he knew anything about love, it was that it was an entirely subjective topic. He couldn't trust just anyone's description of it.

Mrs. Hudson was too closely connected to John and the two of them talked about Sherlock enough as it was, Lestrade would never take him seriously, and Sherlock would chew his own arm off before he came to Mycroft for help.

He knew who he had to speak to.

~

“Sherlock!”

Molly Hooper stood in her open doorway with a shocked expression, but dropped it and became slightly frantic, smoothing down her hair and crossing her arms awkwardly in front of her chest as if trying to hide something.

“What are you doing here?”

“I need to ask you something.”

“Er, it couldn't wait until tomorrow?”

“No.”

She fidgeted, uncertain. “I wish you would've called first.”

Sherlock looked at her strangely. “I texted you.”

“You just said, 'Coming over.' with no explanation,” Molly said, her voice squeaking slightly. “I assumed you sent it to be by mistake.”

Sherlock said nothing, just assumed an irritated expression as if to say “How is that my fault?”

She hesitated, but said, “Alright, hold on for a minute,” and shut the door on him.

From the other side, he heard unmistakeable sounds of Molly hurriedly rummaging across the room, picking up rubbish and used dishes, rearranging everything into a more presentable state. After nearly four minutes, she opened the door again, her hair now tied back and her shirt changed.

He walked in, scanning her flat. _Furniture comfortable but not trendy._ _A shirt she missed during her impromptu cleanup, tucked imperceptibly underneath the sofa._ Doesn't entertain houseguests very often or at all. _Laptop open, still wearing pyjamas and it's nearly 1pm._ Was probably going to spend her day off online, with no intention of going out.

Now that Sherlock was here, he suddenly worried he made the wrong choice of confidant. She was the only person he knew who wouldn't laugh him out the room when he broached the question. He also thought she was the least likely to let it slip to John about their topic of conversation, on account that they've never been in a room alone together and there was no reason for them to be. However, going by the looks of it, Molly also appeared to not have much of a social life. She might not be the best judge of romance, after all. But Sherlock didn't have many other options, and he was already here, so he supposed it wouldn't hurt to ask her.

“The kettle's just boiled. Go ahead and make yourself at home.”

He nodded and sank into her lounge, assuming a stiff pose, drumming his fingers upon his knee impatiently. She returned not too long after, lugging a tray burdened with a teapot, two cups on saucers, milk, and sugar. There was plenty of space next to Sherlock on the sofa, but Molly dragged a chair from the next room and sat across from him, waiting for him to finish fixing his own cuppa before making her own.

He remained silent, not knowing where to start. Molly didn't seem as if she was about to say anything and only looked at him intently, waiting for him to initiate the conversation.

“I need to understand something,” he said simply.

Sherlock suddenly felt very hot, and put down his cup to remove his scarf and coat.

“Have you ever been in love?” he forced out with a mumbled breath.

Molly flushed, clearly not expecting that question. “That's a little personal.”

He waited, knowing that she wasn't exactly denying him an answer.

“Yes.”

“Recently?”

Hesitating slightly, she uttered, “Maybe.”

“What does it feel like?”

She bit her lip. “Is this for a case?”

He considered lying, but thought better of it. If he was expecting her to lay her heart out for his dissection, he could spare a little honesty.

“No,” he said quietly before exhaling heavily. “I need to understand because... I think I might be.”

“Might be what?”

“In love.” Sherlock twisted his face at the last word.

Crimson blossomed across her face, and she looked down at the cup she held in her lap. Sherlock thought it strange. If anyone should feel embarrassed right now, it should be him. She had little reason to feel so uncomfortable with this conversation.

Interesting.

“Why do you think that?” she asked, her eyes still averted.

“Normally, compartmentalization and emotional detachment comes to me instinctively. But recently I've found myself constantly distracted by thoughts of... attraction. And jealousy.” He looked up at her imploringly. “I needed a second opinion, to know if what it is I'm feeling is what I think it is.”

She looked up at him oddly. “And you first thought of me?”

He sipped his drink carefully before answering. True, he had considered Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, and Mycroft, but had eliminated them as options almost immediately. He spoke the truth in its simplest form.

“You were the only one who would understand.”

The response seemed to satisfy her, and she smiled slightly to herself. “Okay, what do you need?”

“I need to understand how to know for sure whether or not I'm in love.”

“Have you never – ?”

“Obviously not, or else I wouldn't be here asking you,” he snapped.

“Alright,” she said calmly. “But you know, there aren't any formulas or tests. You just know. And if you have to question yourself, then chances are, you aren't in love.”

Sherlock groaned, “But – how am I supposed to know if I don't even understand what I'm supposed to know?!”

He bent his head forward and coursed his hands through his hair, feeling like he was about to come apart.

Worried eyes stared back into his. “How do you feel about this person?”

“I feel...” John's face flitted through Sherlock's mind. “Different.”

“Different how?”

“Like... before everything used to be so simple – so black and white. Now, it's like something out of a dream.”

The words poured out of Sherlock with curious ease, as if he'd known that this was how he felt the entire time.

“It 's novel, wonderful and unbearable all at once. In some sort of masochistic way, it's as if I revel in the pain of it.”

“Like the pain has become a part of you, and without it, you'd feel empty?”

Sherlock nodded.

Molly continued, “And you're so fascinated and overwhelmed by this person, and you'd never be able to stop feeling the way you do, even though they may never feel the same way about you? That you'd do anything for them to be happy, no matter how much it hurts?”

Shocked at how Molly seemed to be reading his mind, he looked up at her to find pained watery eyes staring back at him. “Yes, exact– Oh.”

 _The trembling hands, the dilated pupils, the unexplained blush_. Mystery solved, he thought, mentally hitting himself in the forehead. How had he not realized it earlier?

Before he could speak, Molly said, “Look, you don't need to say anything. This isn't your problem.”

“But it is my problem if – ”

“No, it really isn't,” she looked him square in the eye with a soft expression. “What are you going to say? That you apologize for the feelings I can't help but have for you?”

It was as if Sherlock's affection for John opened him up to the ability of empathy, because he felt like he understood what Molly needed.

“No,” he pressed firmly, putting down his cup, and leaned closer to take her free hand.

He surprised himself, never having held anyone's hand since his mother's when he was a child.

“If I realize anything now, you can't control the way you feel about someone, even if you've chosen the wrong person to feel this way about,” he squeezed her fingers softly, “and I hope that you do find the right person.”

She cleared her throat, took back her hand gently, and tried discreetly drying the moisture from her eyes.

“I will say this, though. You're a lot nicer when you're in love,” she managed smiled.

Sherlock froze at the affirmation. So he _was_ in love. He thought that if he'd discovered what he was experiencing, it would help clear things up and make him feel better about the situation. If anything he felt worse, knowing that this was what he was inflicted with, not some sort of fleeting emotion that would go away eventually, like the impermanent thrill of nicotine coursing through his veins after a cigarette or a patch. Instead it was like the enduring agony of a nicotine craving when it's been three weeks since his last hit and his insides felt like deteriorating.

“Can I ask you who she is?” Molly asked, bringing Sherlock out of his petrified thoughts.

“Who is?”

“The lucky lady.”

He grinned shyly all of a sudden. “Um. John.”

Her eyes widened fractionally, and she let out an, “Oh.” She let out a small laugh.

“I should have known.”

“Why?”

“You've changed quite a bit since you met him, and you act differently when he's around. I didn't really understand the two of you at first. I thought you might have been his mentor of some sort, because you were more patient with him than with anybody else, and he kept going on and on about how fantastic you are.”

Sherlock finished his tea, using the cup to cover the stupid smile that was threatening to encroach onto his face. He put it down and stood up, moving to put his scarf and coat back on.

“Are you going to tell him?” Molly asked.

He worried the scarf in his hands. He'd always thought relationships and the emotions tied to them brought too many complications. It was why he'd always avoided them. Now that he'd succumbed to something stronger than feelings of friendship, he was falling fast. Should he nip this in the bud and start climbing out or dive deeper into the abyss?

“I don't know,” he replied. “He's dating someone else. Not to mention all the times people assume we're together and he gets incredibly defensive about it.”

He looked up at Molly, her face full of sincerity. “Does it help? Them knowing, even though they don't feel the same way?”

Holding his gaze, she said openly, “No. Not really.”

Sherlock had always thought of himself as an outside observer of the little people as they went on with their dull lives. Since he never allowed anyone affect his own life, he never considered that anybody would be affected by his. Now, observing the sadness in Molly's face, the emotional impression he's unknowingly made on another person, a pang of guilt surged through him.

“You should still tell him,” Molly said, a genuine smile reaching her eyes. “You'll never know for sure until you do. I meant what I said before, Sherlock. I want you to be happy.”

“And I you.” Sherlock bent down to press a soft kiss upon her the cheek.

“Thank you, Molly Hooper.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much love to [wicked_little_thing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked_little_thing) for taking the time to beta and offer her wonderfully helpful advice.
> 
> I love all of you who've been following and reading or are just joining in! Thanks so much for your comments, all are greatly appreciated!


	5. Tale As Old As Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had weighed John's possible reactions. The likelihood of John taking a swing at him. The likelihood of damaging their friendship. The likelihood of John leaving.
> 
> Any possibility was too great a risk, but Sherlock had always been a risk-taker.

When Sherlock arrived back home, he heard John still rummaging about in his room. Sherlock did his best to ignore the erratic thumping in his chest as he walked up the stairs and barged in to find John sitting on the floor and sifting through a box of his jumpers.

“I need you to do something for me.”

John stopped and looked up at him. “You should knock when you come into my room.”

Sherlock rapped his knuckles against the door brusquely.

“I mean in the future.”

Sherlock exhaled heavily. “Noted. Now get up.”

John struggled a bit and got to his feet. “Alright, what is it? Is it something to do with the hearts case?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, grasping at the convenient excuse. “I need you to get in touch with the friends and family of the second victim, Nicole Turner. I need data on anyone who was romantically involved with her from a year before her death, anyone who might have had a passion-inspired motive for murder.”

“I thought you told the detective inspector to get that done.”

“If I relied on the Scotland Yard for everything, I'd get nowhere.”

John rubbed his face wearily. “Okay, fine.”

“I'll text you the details. Keep me updated.”

“Wait, you're not coming with me?”

“No,” Sherlock said shortly.

John waited for an explanation, but when it became apparent he wasn't going to get one, he nodded implicitly. He seemed a little flustered at the prospect of being left to his own devices, but was ready and out the door in less than five minutes, and the detective left soon after.

Sherlock wasn't planning on conducting research on a different victim's past. That could wait. The time between the discovery of one of the hearts and a new body were widely spaced out, and chances were that another linked murder wouldn't take place for quite some time. He only needed the busywork to keep John out of the flat for the rest of the day. If he was being honest, the case couldn't be farther from his mind.

~

It was nearly eleven o'clock when John finally returned to 221B. Sherlock had finished his task exactly two hours and forty-six minutes ago and had been sitting in his armchair, violin at his chin, playing aimlessly as he waited for John to come home.

He'd gotten a series of text messages from John, fulfilling his promise to keep him posted. The texts started out coherent, offering a few names he learned from the victim's parents and friends. The victim's then-boyfriend, however, turned out to have plans to go on a pub crawl with his mates, but agreed to talk if John tagged along. As the night progressed, his messages got progressively muddled and less relevant to the case. It made Sherlock's lips twitch with amusement, but also made him feel uneasy, worried that John might not be exactly be in his right mind tonight.

He heard the telltale sounds coming from the front door. _Keys fumbling, blind jabbing at the doorknob. Footing on the staircase match John's weight distribution, but slower and careless, although not so much that he's stumbling into the walls._ Tipsy, four beers maximum. Probably less, considering John's general lack of protein, carbohydrate, and fat intake. Sherlock was still unsure of what to expect. He could only wait and see if John would notice anything new. He continued playing and kept his gaze affixed to nothing in the space ahead of him.

“Hey,” John mumbled, rubbing his eyes and dropping his keys on the table near the entrance.

Sherlock strummed a low note in reply, watching as John staggered into the next room, passing through without a hint of awareness. Sherlock sighed and rested his bow. It would just have to wait for tomorrow then.

Before he could finish his thought, John walked right back in from the kitchen, his sobriety turning on like a switch.

The apartment was unrecognizable. The boxes John had abandoned in the corner of the room were gone, and each table, which normally overflowed with newspapers and case files and experiment notes, were cleared. Every exposed surface of wood was dusted and polished and reflected the dim light from the singular lamp near the center of the room, but that wasn't what made John gape so ludicrously.

Every expanse of wall that wasn't already obstructed by a door, window, or fireplace, was now obscured by five towering bookcases. Most of the furniture had to be rearranged and the room felt just a bit tighter, but the smile that spread on John's face reassured Sherlock that he had made the right choice.

“What – why – ”

Sherlock smirked. “And here I thought you were so close to graduating to complete sentences.”

John ignored that. “I don't understand.”

“How surprising.”

“Sherlock!” John groaned. “How is it that I want to kiss you and punch you at the same time?”

His heart fluttered, but Sherlock reminded himself it was only an impassioned figure of speech.

“Poor Mrs. Hudson,” John mumbled.

“Why?”

“Well, you obviously didn't clean this whole place on your own.”

“I resent that.”

“That isn't a denial.”

Sherlock scowled and said nothing.

John let out a laugh. He approached the bookcases and traced his fingertips across the worn spines. He picked one off the shelves at random.

“Oh my God,” John whispered as he flipped through it carefully, like handling a fragile newborn. He inspected the first page. “This must be an early edition, isn't it?”

Sherlock smiled to himself. “I'd say first edition. Most of them are.”

“Where on earth did these come from?”

“I got in touch with an old client who made some donations.”

“Donations?” John said incredulously. “These must be worth a fortune!”

“Well, I say donations...”

John turned his head sharply and winced at the resulting headache. “Don't tell me you stole these.”

Sherlock hesitated. “No, I didn't steal them. Coerced them is more apt.”

“What do you mean?”

“His father died recently, and along with his sizable home, he left him a sizable assortment of written works, and he allowed me to take my pick.”

“You said coerced.”

“There may have been some light blackmail involved.”

John tsked softly, but he was smiling as he did.

Sherlock continued pressing his bow against the taut strings in response. One of the things he loved about the violin was its versatile potential to convey his moods when he couldn't express them himself. Discordant sawing when impatient or upset. Drawn out melodies when he felt overburdened by his stimulated mind. Now, intricate polished harmonies sounded, singing the song that echoed through his head whenever John entered the room.

During the next few minutes, only music sounded through the space as John studied the new furnishings. His eyes grazed across the multitude of book titles in their shared collection. At one point his eyes narrowed suddenly. He paced slowly from the first shelf to the last, and then back again, his face screwed up in confusion.

Sherlock was slightly impressed. He didn't think he'd catch on to that so quick.

“Dewey Decimal System.”

John looked closer as the understanding hit him and a wide grin stretched across his face.

“It's like our own personal library.”

“ _Your_ own personal library,” Sherlock corrected.

“Sorry?” John said, tearing his eyes away from the shelves.

“It's yours. I don't need them. Any information I've read that's relevant to my work would have already been permanently stored in here,” Sherlock said, tapping at his head.

John regarded him carefully.

“You know, when I asked for you to compromise with me on some things, I just meant I wanted a little space. You didn't have to do all this.”

“I wanted to.”

Gratitude flooded John's face and he smiled broadly.

“First the breakfast this morning, now you've turned our sitting room into a library just for me. I'm starting to feel spoiled.”

“I'll try refrain from doing anything like this in the future then,” Sherlock said with a straight face.

Chuckling, John bit his lip and looked at him thoughtfully. “Really though, Sherlock, this is amazing. Thank you.”

Sherlock didn't respond. He'd been fighting with himself all day, trying to figure out whether he should tell him or not. Pros and Cons chart running a mile long, but each reason tied back to the same thing: pros – John might love him back; cons – John might not.

He had weighed John's possible reactions. The likelihood of John taking a swing at him. The likelihood of damaging their friendship. The likelihood of John leaving.

Any possibility was too great a risk, but Sherlock had always been a risk-taker.

It was like their first case together, the serial suicides. One pill life, the other death. He could be so sure he'd chosen right, but he could never be completely positive. It itched at him for the longest time, not knowing whether he'd picked the right one. It almost made him wish he had taken the damn capsule, poison or not.

And now the itch returned. Time to swallow the pill.

“John,” Sherlock spoke, putting down his violin and walked towards him. “Have I told you why my last flatmate moved out?”

John turned towards him and looked at him curiously.

“Susan, right? You said it was because she was stuck in in the rain and you didn't let her in so she had to break in through the back window,” he said, and a laugh threatened to creep onto his face but he bit it back, “Sorry, that's not funny.”

Sherlock's lips twisted, amused. “Well, yes. She left for a lot of reasons, really. They all seemed to tie into the idea that I'm incredibly inconsiderate.”

A small pang of distress crossed John's face. “No, you're not.”

“I am,” Sherlock said affirmatively. “Susan said it was because I didn't know how to love other people, so that's why I never cared enough to change anything in my life for the sake of others. I guess that's also why I never really realized I was so selfish until you gave me reason not to be.”

“Me?” John asked, confused.

Sherlock found it difficult to keep eye contact and his hands were shaking. Nerves? That must be it. He didn't remember the last time he'd felt nervous before, and John's unwavering gaze was not helping.

“With any of my old flatmates, I wouldn't have even bothered entertaining the idea of changing my daily routine. But that was because I didn't care about them. I care about you.

“So you have to understand that you have nothing to thank me for. You're not taking anything from me, and you're not putting me out. Everything I have already, my books, my sitting room,” _Myself_. “Whatever else. They already belong to you.”

“What are you saying?” John asked, his voice low and hoarse.

There was only a few feet separating the two of them, but Sherlock stepped closer, not wanting to allow any chance of ambiguity in his meaning.

“I love you.”

John stared at him in stunned silence. He blinked and he smiled warily. “Are you winding me up? Because of what I told you this morning about what Nadia said?”

His face looked almost hopeful, scared to believe otherwise.

_Yes, I was_ , Sherlock could have said.Wipe the hurt and force a laugh. It would have been so easy.

Instead, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to John's.

Sherlock's entire mind was on fire. Thousands of things were running through his head, first of which was _What the hell are you thinking?_ followed soon after by the subconscious cataloging of flavours (clove and gooseberry from his three Leffe Blonde beers), but everything became insignificant the moment he felt John relax against him and press back.

The slight pressure of lips, the soft swipe of tongue, the caress of hand against cheek. Delete everything else, delete it all. This is what he should be filling his mind with, not the numerous types of tobacco ash and how to distinguish them.

But he felt John push at his shoulders and stumble backward.

“W-what – I don't – I'm not –” John stammered.

_I'm not gay_. Sherlock's heard the phrase only too often, and he'd expected that this would be his first response.

“I'm not – I'm not sure this is a good idea.”

Sherlock's heart rose and thumped erratically, waiting for him to complete his thought. It wasn't exactly a rejection.

John looked at him carefully, sincerity intensifying his gaze. “I'm sorry.”

Flatline.

Sherlock wanted to run out, leave this room and not look back. He moved to turn away.

“No, Sherlock, stop, please.” John reached out and grabbed his arm.

Sherlock was still facing away from him, but he stopped at the touch of John's hand gripping at his elbow.

“Sherlock, please look at me.”

He shifted his head, his eyes meeting John's.

“Look,” John was still breathing heavy and slow. “I know we've only known each other for a few weeks, but I'd do anything for you, you know that.”

John paused, then said, “But you're my friend. My best friend.”

Sherlock had anticipated this, but anticipation was different from confirmation. The devastating humiliation and embarrassment was threatening to crush his very being.

He always had the highest self-esteem, but only because he never carried the shame that always accompanied bothering with other people's opinions. Now he cared, he really did care about what John thought about him.

John's opinion alone mattered because John alone mattered.

He'd called him his friend, his best friend. That still meant something. Didn't it? Or was it just an excuse to cushion the cruelty of the truth?

“You mean so much to me. You know that, right?”

Sherlock heard the words distantly from John's direction, but now he was lost in his mind, and all he understood from the words was _I don't love you_.

Of course John couldn't love him. How could he expect him to? Barely anyone could tolerate him, much less love him. The words thrown at him over the years now rained on him like stones. _Weirdo_. _Tosser_. _Freak_. Why did he assume John would think any differently?

“Even though I'm a freak?” he tried to keep his voice light but his voice cracked involuntarily.

“Shut up.” John said sharply. He tightened his grasp around Sherlock's arm and pulled him fractionally closer.

“Don't you dare listen to those idiots who call you that. They don't know you. I know you. Behind all your faults and your ego, I know you. You're incredible, you're clever, and ridiculously considerate,” he tightened his grip on Sherlock's arm, “When I see that, all those other things don't matter anymore.”

Sherlock closed his eyelids and tried to ignore the sting behind them. He wanted so much to believe him.

Fuck, this was going to be awkward now. John probably wouldn't want to live here anymore.

“Are you going to move out?” Sherlock asked tentatively.

A pained look struck John's face. “Do you want me to move out?”

“No! I only thought – ” Sherlock faltered. “I don't want you to feel uncomfortable.”

John slid his hand down to hold Sherlock's wrist comfortingly. “I don't feel uncomfortable. And you don't have to keep worrying if I'm going to leave. I already told you I'm staying. Only unless you don't want me here.”

“I'd prefer it if you stayed.”

“Then I'm staying.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock said, and he pulled away from John's grasp. “I'd also prefer if we forget this happened.”

Were it his choice, he'd delete it readily, but John was already permanently engraved into his mind palace, his name etched into every surface of his thoughts. Only choice now was to pretend, and Sherlock always fancied himself an actor. This would simply be a more permanent role to play.

He waited for John's response.

John stared at him, his eyes lost and searching for something to say. Instead, he simply gave a solemn nod.

Sherlock returned it and walked away.

Molly was right. This didn't really help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've worked for too long on this chapter, and by the end of it, I just wanted [wicked_little_thing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked_little_thing) to tear it to shreds because I was so sick of it. Instead, she's reaffirmed my confidence and I absolutely love her for it. Thanks so much for your beta work brilliance!
> 
> This was a later update than usual, so sorry! I feel that the time between updates might get progressively longer now that my college is starting soon, but I'll try my best to keep up. Who knows? I might even work better under pressure.
> 
> As always, every comment/review, whether negative or positive is much appreciated! I love hearing from any and all of you :) Except from Steve Carlsberg. He is such a spoilsport, that Steve.


	6. Possessive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Nadia go head-to-head, compelling Sherlock to find out more about his heart.

As the lights dimmed down in the darkened theatre, John felt Nadia's fingers intertwine with his. He pressed a tight smile and squeezed back. The movie was her idea, and John couldn't be more grateful for it. The cinema relieved him from having to think up topics for conversation, which was exactly what he needed right now because the only thoughts running through his mind were of Sherlock and what transpired between them two nights ago.

~

John dreaded getting up that morning, but he pushed himself up and out of bed, resolving to stick to Sherlock's request to gloss over the incident and pretend that nothing happened. How else were their lives going to continue? Stuck in an endless bout of awkward silence and avoided eye contact? No, this was for the best.

Sherlock had stuck to the act seamlessly. When John greeted him good morning, the detective waved to the eggs and toast on the table and immediately dove into the information he'd found about their current case. The Cardiac Carver, as the newspaper from that morning had nicknamed their heart-thieving murderer, remained elusive as ever.

The detective had been looking into the suspects whose names John acquired yesterday; two ex-boyfriends, five one night stands, and one obsessive co-worker who'd been fired for sexual harassment. Without data on the other victims to compare it to, Sherlock made do by carrying out extensive investigation on each suspect, hacking into police databases to uncover criminal backgrounds. His search turned up three DUIs, several parking violations, a single charge of battery, and a shoplifter.

“Dull, predictable, boring,” Sherlock had explained as he crossed them off the list. “The murderer spent months in silence, only to indulge in a kill every few years. Irregular periods of recklessness and conscientiousness. This is the kind of man who would have either done something incredibly damaging or his record would be squeaky clean.”

John continued listening without paying any real attention. He wondered how the hell Sherlock could be acting so nonchalant. It was as if Sherlock _had_ forgotten it. How did deleting work anyway? Could Sherlock delete memories on impulse, or does he place things at the end of a queue until it was eventually pushed out?

On the other hand, John could think of nothing else. He distractedly tried to pay attention to Sherlock as he illustrated his deductions, but John couldn't take his eyes off his lips. They were moving at such rapid fire speed, trying to keep up with his fast-working brain. Those same lips that had pressed upon John's, so surprisingly soft, and – whether it was a conscious decision or not, he hadn't decided – John knew he had pressed back. More than that; he knew what the inside of Sherlock's mouth tasted like, and no amount of mouthwash or strong coffee could make him forget it. They say that kissing a smoker was like licking an ashtray, but Sherlock was more like –

“John?”

“Burnt toast,” John blurted.

Sherlock looked at him strangely. “What? Did I burn the toast?”

John could have smacked himself.

“No,” he said quickly. “It's fine. What were you saying?”

“I said I want to question the people who were close with Olivia Perry – the third victim. Finish up and get ready so we can go.”

John frowned. Sherlock never waited around for him. His mind was far too restless. It was as if the rest of his body had to keep up or else it would become agitated, like jerking forward roughly in a suddenly halted car. If John couldn't keep up, Sherlock almost always abandoned him without a second thought.

Maybe Sherlock hadn't deleted his feelings after all. Maybe he couldn't. Even though he knew Sherlock should get over him, John couldn't help but guiltily feel warm at the thought.

~

Nadia didn't live far from the movie house so they both took a walk, hand in hand along the sparsely populated streets of London. She joked about how terrible the movie was. John honestly couldn't even recall what the movie had been about, distracted as he'd been, but he laughed along with her at the appropriate cues.

They ordered takeaway at an Italian place that caught Nadia's eye, but the moment they reached her front door, she set the food aside and greedily pulled John toward the sofa. His interest was piqued, but the moment she urged her lips against his, flashes of that night with Sherlock became all too vivid and he pulled away.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“I – yeah,” he pulled her hands away from his face and gripped them in his own. “I need to tell you something.”

She sat up and looked at him apprehensively.

“Look, I don't want you to get worried. I just... I just don't want to keep anything from you.”

He took a deep shaky breath.

“Er... something happened a couple nights ago.”

This was more difficult to spit out than John had thought. He only just realized that he hadn't actually said it out loud until this moment, and now it felt stranger than ever.

“Sherlock kissed me.”

Nadia pulled her hands away from him.

“What?” her voice alone exhibited no anger, but her face turned to stone at the word.

“It all happened really fast. I came home and he did something – something just really thoughtful for me. He started telling me about how he did it because he cares about me.”

John didn't feel like continuing. It felt like an invasion of both his and Sherlock's privacy. It didn't make sense, since it was Nadia he was dating and it was Nadia who he should feel guilty toward, but it felt like it was Sherlock he was betraying.

He had to say it, though. It wasn't fair to keep this from her.

John took a slow breath. “He told me he loved me. I got really confused because I thought he was joking, and then... he kissed me.”

Nadia's face became completely unreadable.

“He's in love with you?” her words hitched in her throat, as if struggling to register the notion. “What did you tell him?”

“I broke off the – I broke it off, and I explained to him that he means so much to me, but I think of him as a friend.”

It suddenly registered how that must have sounded to her. Nadia told him she loved him three days ago and he didn't respond to it. Sherlock told him he loved him two days ago and John let him know how much he cares about him. Probably a bit not good.

“It didn't mean _anything_ ,” he emphasized the last word, but only for her sake, ignoring that nagging voice that echoed _Yes it did_ in his head.

She squeezed her eyes and brought a hand to her face, bracing herself, trying to comprehend what she was hearing.

“Um, okay... Do you need a place to stay then? I could talk to Emily, I'm sure she'll be fine with you kipping on the lilo for a few days before you find a new place.”

“Er... I'm not moving out,” John looked confused.

An incredulous look spread on her face.

“What do you mean you're not moving out?”

“I don't see why I would have to,” he said, flustered.

“But – but he's your flatmate! He's in love with you, he kissed you, and you're still going to live together? Don't you see how – how _messed up_ that sounds?!”

“Well, yeah, it's weird, but I'm not just going to abandon him because he has feelings for me,” John said, more than a little irate.

“How can you keep defending him?”

Nadia looked like she was on the verge of tears and the only thing that held them back was the rage biting into her words.

“You always justify his actions! Every time he acts rudely, it's always 'He's just like that, don't take it personally' or 'Ignore him, he's in a mood.' It's like Sherlock Holmes can do no bloody wrong!”

She was breathing hard, seething with indignation.

“Now, he's trying to take you away from me, and you're acting like it isn't his fault? Like he couldn't help it? He fucking kissed you! Don't tell me he couldn't help that!”

Giving in, her tears welled over and ran down her face.

“Do you love him?” she choked out, her eyes fearful in anticipation.

“No!” John said instinctively.

 _I'm not gay_. It was on the tip of his tongue, but it sounded meaningless in his mind. He'd repeated it so many times, but no one seemed to believe him, and after the thousandth time, it just seemed trivial.

_I do love him, as a friend. That's all._

“Nadia,” he said softly, reaching his hand up to wipe a tear away tenderly. “He's just my friend, I promise. Nothing's going to happen between us. He understands that. We agreed to keep things the way they were, and he's stuck to it. He's not pursuing me and he's not trying to take me away from you. His friendship is important to me, but you're important to me, too.”

He knew she'd relax if he could just say it. Three simple words. But it would be a lie, and he couldn't do it.

“I love... being with you. I don't want to lose you.”

She swallowed sadly.

“You should probably go.”

John's face fell. He felt distressed, not knowing whether that meant she didn't want to see him anymore, or if she just needed some space for tonight. Should he comply or did she want him to fight for her?

The fire in her eyes quieted.

“You're going to need to get up early tomorrow for your first day. We'll talk tomorrow, yeah?” she said softly.

He breathed a sigh of relief and followed her to her door, grabbing his coat. When they were standing at the threshold, she gazed at him for a hard moment, then clutched the front of his jacket and pulled him to her lips, claiming his mouth and marking her territory.

~

Looking out the window from the back of a cab, Sherlock's eyes flicked back and forth at every passing person, building, streetlamp. Driving through the city was always one of the best ways to clear his head. Whizzing by so many people, uncovered developments. It was like white noise, suffocating all the spikes of intruding thoughts, which he needed now more than ever.

It had been a week since the night he made his confession to John, and he'd been drowning himself in his work ever since. It was ironic, that the main reason he took John on his cases in the first place was for his help, but now the doctor was posing a frustrating distraction.

It was hardly John's fault, though. He was obviously trying his best to do right by Sherlock. He'd been acting as normal as possible while taking certain precautions, like maintaining an appropriate physical distance, and avoiding all possible mentions of his girlfriend. His hesitancy only served to make things a bit more awkward, though. It was like scribbling out a mistake on a piece of paper; trying to cover it up only drew more attention to it.

Nevertheless, Sherlock didn't have the willpower to distance himself. John was his new addiction, and he proved more satisfying than casework or nicotine or any of his harder recreational habits.

The cab ride helped dull his craving and he refocused on the discovery he made at the lab. He had been examining the substance from the jar the heart had been sitting in. Lestrade assumed it was formalin, but in fact, it was rubbing alcohol, and significantly clean alcohol at that. The murderer must had kept it in formalin for some time to keep it preserved, then replaced it with fresh alcohol on a regular basis until the jar's contents remained relatively pure.

Aside from its conserved and sterile state, there were virtually no nicks or scratches on the organ itself. The pictures Lestrade sent him confirmed that the first two hearts were also kept in similar prime condition. The glass jars even seemed commonplace, but at closer observation, Sherlock noticed that that they had been polished regularly and handled with care; the only scrapes on the glass were made recently, probably when the jar had been dropped off and subsequently found, judging by the amount of dirt that had accumulated in the grooves.

Intact heart in a pristine jar. The murderer treasured the organ, that much was obvious.

There was something else, though. Something that didn't quite fit with his initial deduction … but he couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was.

The cab pulled up to 221B, and Sherlock paid and exited, distractedly trying to work out his confusion as he walked up the steps to their flat on the second floor.

 _Clink_. _Clink-clink._

Sherlock paused mid-step. It was coming from upstairs, the sound of a metal spoon stirring in a cup.

John started work today. Mrs. Hudson's footsteps sounded from downstairs in 221A. Sherlock had just seen Lestrade at Barts. Mycroft's visits were always preceded by constant phone calls that Sherlock ignored. There was only one other probable person it could be.

 _Nadia_.

Sherlock had expected this. John was too good a man to keep a secret from the woman he was dating and Nadia was too possessive a woman to let this go without executing a power play.

He resumed walking up the stairs and entered the flat. He moved directly to hang up his coat and scarf, not bothering to look up at her, but from the corner of his eye, he observed her sitting in Sherlock's usual chair, stirring her tea.

“Nadia,” Sherlock said evenly, turning to her.

“Hello, Sherlock,” Nadia spoke with fabricated innocence. “I thought I forgot my wallet here, so I stopped off at St. Mary's to borrow John's key. You don't mind, do you?”

“And you decided to make a cup of tea while you were here?” he said indifferently, as he took the seat opposite, in John's usual armchair. He felt surprisingly comforted by the unfamiliar subtle depressions in the cushions John had made over the amount of time he claimed the chair as his own.

Nadia simply shrugged, keeping her eyes trained on him as she took a slow sip.

“Get on with it,” he said, an edge to his voice.

“I'm sorry?”

“You're obviously here for a reason, so get on with it and leave.”

A look of amusement crept onto her face as she absentmindedly traced the mouth of her mug with her finger.

“That's funny,” she said.

“What is?”

“You. Accusing me of having an ulterior motive,” and her eyes lingered on the new furnishings.

A stab of irritation pierced through him.

“The answer's no.”

Nadia glanced at him with interest.

“And to what question might that be?”

“John must have told you how I feel about him, so you're here to ask me to leave him alone. The answer's no.”

“Who said I'm _asking_ anything?”

Sherlock scoffed. “You're _demanding_ that I leave him alone? The man I work and live with?”

She set her cup aside and donned a patronizing smile as she leaned forward.

“It really is in your best interests to start cutting him off from your life. Trust me, I know how it feels, being in love with someone who doesn't feel the same way. And he was just my coworker, I can't imagine what it would have been like to have lived with him as well. Sure, you lasted the past week, but how do you think you'll feel after a month or so? Seeing him with me? Knowing full well that he'll never feel the same way?”

 _One-two_. Her words hit him like two blows to the gut. Sherlock clenched his teeth and carefully kept his voice even.

“Your concern is touching, but I'm perfectly capable at keeping my feelings separate from everything else. That's how I've operated all my life.”

“I think it's clear that hasn't been working very well for you lately.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, look at this place,” she said, her voice cut with mirth. “I've been here often enough to know that every inch of this flat is your workspace, especially this room. Now, it's basically a shrine.”

Sherlock studied Nadia carefully. She was clearly more observant than she let on.

Why was she so observant though? She never really bothered reasoning with him before. Whenever he said something that made her upset, she simply left, or replied with a _Screw you_. She obviously felt intimidated. Like a viper, attacking only when threatened.

“You don't trust John,” Sherlock said all of a sudden.

“Excuse me?”

“If you didn't think there was a possibility for John to have feelings for me, you wouldn't have bothered. You might've even felt sympathy. You said it yourself, you know how it feels. But you're on the attack, and you've rather shown your hand there, Ms. Darley.”

Sherlock took a moment to steeple his fingers, his eyes intensifying as Nadia noticeably stilled.

“The fact that you came all the way here to ensure that I don't lure John away from you implies that you believe I can. It's not just that you don't trust me; you don't trust John. You think that with enough convincing, he'll fall in love with me, and you're here to make sure that doesn't happen.”

“He doesn't love you!” she snarled, losing her composure.

“You don't believe that,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly.

“You know I told him how I felt about him and you still let him come back home. You're terrified of him leaving you, but you haven't actually asked him to stay away from me.”

Sherlock considered that for a second. “You knew he'd choose me. If you had given him an ultimatum: you or me, he'd choose me.”

Her face contorted with fury, but she didn't bother denying it.

“Thing is, I know that John will never fall in love with me,” Sherlock continued, each word scraped painfully in his throat.

“But I still value his unwavering loyalty and partnership in our work and the respect he holds for me. I don't need his sentiment to appreciate how much he cares about me, which is obviously more than he feels about certain...” Sherlock looked at her pointedly, “others.”

He was milking it, for sure, but the look on Nadia's face was worth the stinging stretch of truth.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he carried on, “If John wants to stop working with me and move out, the choice is entirely his. I even gave him an out that night and he assured me that he wasn't planning on leaving, which is more reassurance than he's given you, I'd say.”

Silence fell between the two of them, both of them exchanging hard, cold glares.

After a few moments, Nadia's face relaxed and she stood up as if to leave, but stopped at his seat and stooped down to speak eye to eye, encroaching into his personal space. Sherlock recoiled instinctively.

“Go ahead and tell yourself that he cares about you, darling,” she said in a cutting whisper. “See if that helps you sleep at night while John spends his in my bed.”

Sherlock froze, and she took advantage of his fixed state to raise a hand and lightly lifted his chin, brushing her thumb under his mouth.

“Keep those lips to yourself and we'll be just fine.”

His head flinched away as her nail scraped sharply across his jaw.

“Tra, Sherlock,” she called out as she stood back up and walked out of the room.

Sherlock remained unmoving after he heard the door click behind Nadia. He noticed her unfinished cuppa, sitting innocently on the table, still steaming slightly. His skin burned where her hand had touched, and he rubbed his face violently as if to try to get rid of any trace of her.

After a few moments, he pushed himself out of his seat and over to the kitchen table where his work had been laid out. Photos of the crime scenes, of the opened bodies, of the preserved organs. He gazed at them distractedly, everything blurring together into a mess of red, matching the fury he felt.

It seemed unnatural, the amount of venom he felt towards Nadia. He never loathed anyone like this before. Sure, he disliked nearly everyone he came across, but he simply never cared enough to become so hostile.

Everything he felt for John, it was threatening to consume him. Unable to let it out, his emotions were kept bottled inside him. He was constantly on edge. No wonder it had been so easy for Nadia to nudge him right over.

Oddly, he imagined he could relate to the Cardiac Carver. To feel so much for a person that you want to own their heart. Metaphorically, of course. _Not a psychopath_ , Sherlock reminded himself. It was almost frightening, though, how much he wanted to consume John whole, but Sherlock couldn't imagine ever wanting to hurt him.

_How do you think you'll feel after a month or so? Seeing him with me? Knowing full well that he'll never feel the same way?_

Sherlock despised himself for admitting it, but Nadia got to him. How _would_ he feel in the future? When John finally picked up the courage to tell Nadia he loves her? What about if, a year or two down the road, he proposed? Would he hate John then? Hate him enough to hurt him? Maybe even –

He shook his head. His thoughts were bound to be biased now – who knows how circumstances would change in the future? Right now, there wasn't a possible scenario he could imagine where he would want to end John's life.

It was Nadia he wanted to throttle, and deep inside, he knew it was because he was jealous. He grimaced at himself. It was pitiful, really. How did the world's only consulting detective get reduced to such pedestrian inclinations?

Stupid, common jealousy. Jealous of her being with him, having him, owning his heart when he could not.

Wait.

That was it. Was that it? Why was that it?

All the bits and pieces of the case swam in his mind; the hearts, the victims, the murderer, the motive.

Then it came together.

He immediately took out his phone and dialed for Lestrade.

“We haven't gotten any new leads on the cardiectomies case, if that's what you're calling about,” a worn out voice spoke after the second ring.

“Of course you haven't, you're heading in the wrong direction.”

“But you're the one who said it was one of the victims' exes– ”

“No, no, forget all that. It isn't one of their exes, it was one of their partners' exes.”

“What?”

“You said all the victims had a romantic partner at their time of death, yes?”

“Yeah. Two had boyfriends, one a fiance.”

“So look into _their_ history instead, rather than the victims' history.”

“Why?”

“The murderer must be one of the men's former lovers, most likely an ex-girlfriend they left in order to be with the victim.”

“… I'm not following. What makes you think that?”

“The method of murder and the preservation of the hearts both point to some sort of romantic attachment between the Cardiac Carver and the victims,” Sherlock said, purposefully patient.

“Right...”

He continued, the words attempting to escape his mouth as fast as they formed in his mind. “But consider the bodies. Abandoned, discarded like rubbish. The murderer was clearly more concerned with _not_ damaging the organ than they were about damaging the body. They hadn't even bothered to sew the gaping hole back up.”

A tired sigh sounded from the other side.

“Does it matter how they treated the body?” Lestrade asked. “Murderers don't usually care about respecting the victim once they've gotten over ending their lives.”

“Yes, but it doesn't add up. To put that much effort into caring for an organ but neglect the bodies? The killer couldn't have loved the victims, not with that sort of treatment.”

“So... the Carver didn't love the victims, but they loved the hearts?”

“Exactly.”

“But how does that make sense? The hearts are a part of the victim, so why would they feel differently about it?”

“Clearly, the killer didn't believe that the heart belonged to that body.”

“What, you mean like a transplant?”

“Something along those lines, but think more metaphorically. Someone loved those three women so deeply that they inherently _gave them their hearts_. The Carver's intention wasn't to kill those women. Perhaps their death was an added bonus, but it wasn't the main objective. It was as if the victims were only vessels, carrying the treasure inside their chests, as it were. They wanted to reclaim the heart.”

Sherlock paused, allowing himself to wrap his mind around the concept.

“Their motive wasn't revenge. It was repossession.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit longer than usual, so I hope that might help gloss over the fact that I haven't posted in over two months. I am really so sorry for not posting in so long! It's just I spent the majority of September/beginning of October working on my cosplay for NYCC, and then right after that I had 4 midterms and two papers due all around the same time, so I've just been swamped. But I'd like to take the time to shower [wicked_little_thing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wicked_little_thing) with love for finding the time to beta with her busy schedule, and of course for providing such great revisions and critiques as always. 
> 
> I can promise you that I refuse to leave this fic as an incomplete, so please don't worry if (worse comes to worst) the next chapter takes a little while as well. I'm just not used to juggling fics with college yet, and I need to schedule my time appropriately, but hopefully I can manage! Again, comments/reviews will be much appreciated, and thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Update: Okay I lied and it's two years later. Things happen. I really do hope I can finish this one day, and if it's really burning you, please let me know. It might encourage me to write a little faster ;)


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